One of the most important avant-garde films of this period, Richard Serra’s Railroad Turnbridge attempts to grasp what Rosalind Krauss termed “a relationship, a transitivity… The physical turnbridge is the support of this experience, not its subject.” (“Richard Serra, A Translation”)

I bore myself (and many others, I’m sure) with how often I mention that I grew up in New York City and how much it’s changed over the years—also, did you happen to know about A and have you gone to B yet or eaten at C—and OMG don’t ever D at E because insert lengthy anecdote here.

But I can’t help it! Like many of my fellow natives and non-native (yet no less New York-y) New Yorkers, I’m in a very serious criticize-it-because-I-love-it-so-much relationship with the big, old apple, and probably always will be.

Few things reflect how complex the city is, and indulge my endless ability to romanticize and fantasize about it, more than the NYC-related art in MoMA’s collection. The photography alone: Helen Levitt, Gary Winogrand, Berenice Abbott, Weegee…to say it wasn’t easy picking just five works for this post is a huge understatement!

I’ll start with an image courtesy of the American photographer Berenice Abbott, who, interestingly, came to New York from Paris in 1929 to find a publisher for a book she’d put together of works by Eugène Atget. Continue reading →